Chapter 382

The Prison Planet

A great boom of thunder awakened Morales several hours before daylight and the sound started the hen to squawking. “Oh, shut up,” he yelled at her. “It scared the shit out of me, too.” But even when her screaming stopped, she kept making her “puck, puck, pucking” sound, and was obviously moving around in the nest.

“Ah, fuck,” he snarled and turned on the lantern, its brilliance blinding him for a second.

“Cheep, cheep, cheep.” A little yellow ball barreled across the distance between the hen’s nest and Morales’ bed that he had formed by scooping out a shallow hole, filling it with leaves and straw, then finished off by spreading a hide over it at ground level. Without slowing, the tiny chicken ran onto the hide and was soon struggling to get on Morales’ knee.

Wide awake now, he stared at the chick. “What the fuck?” Then, “No!” he yelled. “Abso-fucking-lutely no. I am not sleeping with a fucking chicken.”

Lobo grinned his toothy grin at him. “And don’t you start,” which set Lobo to chuffing.

While researching chickens, Morales had happened to read an article about imprinting involving ducks, geese and chickens, but he had glossed over the information at the time because he was searching for the correct food for the baby chicks that were soon to hatch. But now he remembered what he had read. Oh, fuck, he thought. This little guy followed me around almost all day yesterday, but I just thought it was curious. Surely it hasn’t imprinted on me.

“Cheep, cheep, cheep,” Junior said while sitting on Morales’ knee, looking up at him.

“No. No. No! Don’t look at me like that. I’m going to eat you when you’re big enough.”

Again, lightning struck nearby, the accompanying explosion of sound so loud that Morales could feel the concussion in his lungs. Fluttering her wings, Gertrude jumped to her feet, squawking.

With a mighty flapping of its tiny wings, Junior launched himself/herself, apparently aiming for Morales shoulder. It barely made it, although the human was now sitting with his knees drawn up with the distance between knee and shoulder only a foot or so. Still, it was obvious that it wouldn’t be long before the chick would be flying.

He tried to eye the yellow ball that was now sitting on his shoulder. “Well, considering that Momma flies well, even as fat as she is, I guess it’s no great stretch to expect you to quickly learn how yourself.” Then, realizing that the chick would probably be a terror when its down was exchanged for true feathers, he groaned.

Morales didn’t know anything about chickens other than what he had read, but he was fairly certain that 2214’s version flew a lot better than Earth’s chickens did. “Guess that’s one reason you guys manage to stay alive,” he told the chick as he teased a fingertip under its beak.

“Peecchhuuuk,” Gertrude screeched at him.

“All right. All right. I’ll bring Junior back.” Getting up, he took the errant chick to its mother. When he put it down in front of the hen, she didn’t even peck at him, but clucked to her offspring before pushing it under her feathers.

Morales barely beat the yellow ball back to his bed. Nudging his finger against the chick’s chest to get it to step on the finger, he raised Junior until they were staring eye-to-eye. “No! You do not sleep with me. I don’t want chicken shit in my bed and certainly not on the hide I cover it with.”

On the third trip to return the chick to its mother, it hit the ground running while fluttering its wings to help, beating Morales back to the bed by a considerable margin. “Shit. Shit. Shit!” he snarled, but even in his frustration, it was hard not to laugh.

“Cheep. Cheep. Cheep.”

Morales slumped on his bed to stare at the tiny chicken, his tired mind wanting to return to dreamland. “What in the fuck am I going to do with you?” he muttered as another round of thunder sounded, this time a little farther away, the chick still cringing from the sound.

It looked at him with its head tilted slightly to the side. “Cheep. Cheep. Cheep,” it said as if in answer.

“Fuck it,” the human snarled. Getting back up, he grabbed a scrap piece of hide a couple of feet on a side, dropped the scrap next to him and deposited the chicken on it. “If you shit in my bed, I’m going to have chicken for breakfast,” he snarled. Turning off the light, he was quickly back in dreamland, not even responding when the next crash of thunder came. The chick tucked itself between Morales’ arm and side, and it, too, was soon fast asleep.

“Peeccckkkak!” Gertrude screeched.

Opening an eye, Morales looked toward the hen’s nest. She had left it and had moved toward him as far as the cord would let her. “Peeccckkkak!” she repeated.

“Cheep. Cheep. Cheep,” the chick answered sleepily as it poked its head over Morales’ arm.

Morales jerked his arm away to stare at the chicken where it had slept snuggled last night. “What the fuck?” he exclaimed, sitting up as he realized there was warmth against his side. “Don’t tell me that you’ve shit on me.” But there didn’t seem to be any of the noxious semisolid anywhere near, and the warmth must have been because of Junior.

The chick stretched much as a human would, then fluttered its wings. Ignoring Momma, it looked at Morales. “Cheep. Cheep. Cheep.”

Morales had the distinct impression it was asking for food. “No. No. No. Go to Momma,” he said, pointing. “There’s plenty of chicken food over there by her.”

“Cheep. Cheep. Cheep,” it argued. Somehow, the tiny little fluff bucket made the cheeping sound insistent.

Sighing, Morales stood to drag on his clothes and hang the bed hide up. He had shortened the hen’s cord so she couldn’t reach his bed to shit on it again, but he worried about the chicks. Then, staring down at the yellow ball, he gave up. “Ah, fuck. Come on. Let’s see if you’ll eat jerky.”

It would – ravenously.

The hen, apparently giving up on ordering her progeny back to the nest, had decided to eat her own breakfast. Morales, busying himself with starting a pot of coffee and pouring his first cup, had not paid much attention to what the hen was doing. Eventually, something caught his eye and he looked toward the clucking chicken. Coming quickly to his feet, he hurried closer.

“One, two, three, four, I think,” he muttered as he tried to count the chicks as they scurried busily around their mother. After a second count, he was sure. Two more had hatched, and, now that he realized it, he could see a slight difference in the size of the last two to hatch. Junior ran over to mingle with the chicks, much to Morales’ relief.

Easing over to the hen’s area, he found the sixth egg pushed out of the nest. Gertrude turned to look at him, but didn’t offer to come defend her unborn chick. When Morales picked the egg up, he realized that it was room temperature. A memory jogged his mind from his reading. His light was many times brighter than a candle that people used to examine eggs, but he held the egg up to the lamp, anyway. There was a darker center which he decided was the yolk, and a lighter area filling the rest of the egg. There obviously wasn’t a chicken in it, but he didn’t think he wanted to break the egg to see if it were rotten or not. Think I’ll just wait for some fresh ones, he thought as he walked outside and tossed the egg.

Momma was obviously teaching her babies to scratch and eat the vegetables he had put down for them, but one of the industrious little scratchers frequently looked up to check where Morales was.

Man and beast went outside to do their morning business, the foliage still dripping water from the rain as Morales muttered about yet another hard downpour. This one had been of shorter duration and hadn’t swollen the stream much, but everything was soaked. “Fuck it. I’m not going back to the valley today and wading through all those wet weeds and vines. Besides, I have plenty to keep me busy around here.”

Back inside, he refreshed his coffee, sipping it as he prepared breakfast for the two of them, and ... well-cooked a couple of extra pieces of bacon for Junior. Grinning, he spoke to Lobo, “I’m spoiling a fucking chicken, but hell, the little guy is fun – or gal,” he amended.

Lobo grinned back at him and looked over at the chickens.

As soon as he and Lobo had finished their breakfast, Morales broke half a strip of the well-cooked bacon into tiny pieces. “Junior,” he called out. Then holding a piece up, called again.

For whatever reason, the chick was attracted and ran across the cave to stand looking up at Morales. “Want some bacon, Junior?” he said, stressing the word. Then to himself, Ah, shit. Chickens are too fucking dumb to learn a name. But he said the name several times. “Eat, Junior. Eat, Junior.” And eat it did, gobbling the bacon down.

When it was done, it left a smelly present beside Morales’ foot.

“Shit,” he bellowed as he grabbed the chick to stick its beak near the pile while yelling at the chicken. With his shovel, he picked the blob up and put it on the manure pile, then grabbed Junior to sit it down near the pile, too. “There,” he said over and over. “You do your business there.”

“Cheep. Cheep. Cheep,” it said as it looked at the pile of mixed manure and dirt, then back at Morales.

“That’s right. That’s where you shit,” he admonished while wondering if the chicken were capable of being house broken or, in this case, cave broken.

How in the hell did I get myself into this? he wondered as he stared down at the chick. All I wanted was some eggs and an occasional chicken dinner. I’ve got to get that fence done and Momma and her brood installed out there. Then another thought struck. Oh, shit, I can’t do that until the chicks can fly well enough to get into the branches of the tree at night, otherwise, they’ll be eaten by something in short order.

“Peeccckkkak!” Gertrude screeched, wanting more food.

“Nag. Nag. Nag,” he groused as he went about putting more of the greenery and corn out for her.

Morales had been working on his latest version of arrows. With instructional videos about napping arrowheads, plus a profusion of articles, he had become a bit better at shaping flint.

These shafts were from the tree he had found that was so hard even the smallest limbs were tough to cut, yet the shafts he had so painstakingly shaped from it were as flexible as his original fiberglass arrows, although slightly larger in diameter. (He had used the next largest spokeshave blade to shape them.) After polishing and straightening the blanks, he could find only a very few imperfections, and even those were minor. This is the absolute best I can do. If this doesn’t work, and the arrow shatters like the other one did, I’ll be forced to make my own bow – which will never fire an arrow as hard or as far as my compound bow, not to mention I would never be able to resupply bolts for my crossbow when I lose or break the ones I have. This has to work, and if it does, I need to search for more of the “ironwood” trees, because I’ll need arrows and bolts for the rest of my life. (Unable to find any mention of the tree by the scientists, he had named it after he realized how hard and strong the wood was.)

As he had before, with two hacksaw blades squeezed together, he cut the notch out of the front of the arrow shaft to accommodate the arrowhead, marveling yet again how tough the wood was. After testing the fit and widening the slot accordingly until the arrowhead would slip in with a snug fit, he dipped the shank of the arrowhead in the hot glue and slid it into the shaft, quickly winding sinew around the tip as tightly as he could, then finished by wiping glue on the sinew.

Holding the completed shaft up as he examined it to make sure the arrowhead was centered and straight, he admired the gleam of the polished wood and the beautiful feathers he had used for fletching. “All for nothing if it shatters under the strain of the compound bow,” he said with a sigh.

He gave the glue an hour to set, though he knew that a few minutes were all that were really necessary. You’re just putting off the inevitable, he told himself as he took down his weapon belts.

What will I do when these are gone? he asked himself as he took the safety glasses out of their case and put them on. I suppose I need to wear them when I cut wood or do other things, but I don’t dare. I have only two pairs to last me the rest of my life. I have to save them for something like this.

Picking up the deer hide he had worked with until it was supple, he draped it over his shoulder, then put his new arrow in his quiver. “Come on, Lobo; it’s time.”